Strategic Materials history

In 1922 the Army and Navy Munitions Board was established in the War Department to plan for industrial mobilization and procurement of munitions and supplies.

The first activity to develop an inventory of strategic and critical materials for military use was authorized in the Naval Appropriations Act of 1938, which also provided funds to buy strategic items.

Since 1939, the United States government, using the National Defense Stockpile (NDS), has been stockpiling critical strategic materials for national defense.

The National Security Act of 1947 created a civilian mobilization agency, the National Security Resources Board, to advise the President.

Stockpile Report to Congress-23 January 1950.

Stockpile Report to Congress, January—June 1956.

A revised plan was developed in 1958 based on a 3-year war instead of a 5-year war.

Stockpile Report to the Congress - January—June, 1963.

Stockpile Report to the Congress - July—December 1965.

In February 1966, the President authorized the release of quinine sulfate from the National Stockpile.

In 1976 the President issued new stockpile policy guidance.

Stockpile Report to Congress, April 1978-September 1978.

In 1981, President Reagan announced a “major purchase program for the National Defense Stockpile, saying that it was widely recognized that our nation is vulnerable to sudden shortages in basic raw materials that are necessary to our defense production base” (FEMA, 1981).

DoD planning guidance began to change in 1989.

In April 1992, Congress held a hearing on DoD’s 1992 Stockpile Requirements Report of 1992.

Paper read at Committee on Assessing the Need for a Defense Stockpile, February 20, 2007, at Washington, D.C.